


Tapestry

by spqr



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Professor Obi-Wan Kenobi, grad student anakin, horny & sad, swordfighting buddhists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:34:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29529933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spqr/pseuds/spqr
Summary: In March, Obi-Wan drags Anakin to another faculty party, where Anakin gets all sorts of wrong ideas about Quinlan Vos and decides to fellate Obi-Wan in a coat closet about it.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 19
Kudos: 289





	Tapestry

**Author's Note:**

> happy 1:30 am! spellcheck is drunk.

“Oh gods,” says Obi-Wan, holding the I.D. card that’s just fallen out of Anakin’s pants. “You’re a student?”

Anakin zips up said pants and snaps the card out of his hands. “I’m a grad student, not a high school student. Calm down.”

Obi-Wan stares at him dolefully. “You’re not one of mine, are you?”

“No,” Anakin laughs. “What, you wouldn’t recognize your own grad students?”

“I’ve just got three new ones, thank you very much. I’m fairly certain they’re all girls, but then again I’ve only met them once, and your hair is very long - “

“I’m an _aerospace engineer_ ,” Anakin cuts in, unfortunately too late to keep Obi-Wan from saying what he’s just said. “I saw how long it took you to do the math for a fifteen percent tip back at the bar, there’s no way that’s your department.”

“Dear lord,” Obi-Wan says, mostly because having Anakin call him ‘professor’ has just made his cock get ideas about being twenty years younger.

“Come on, you can’t seriously be this freaked about it. What are you, one of the priests from theology? Don’t worry, I won’t rat you out - “

“I’m not a _priest_. I teach Eastern philosophy. But I never get _romantically involved_ with students - “

“And I bet you get a lot of offers, too, don’t you.” Anakin steps closer through the ruined mess of Obi-Wan’s bedroom, the sheets on the floor, the books they knocked off the shelves, Obi-Wan’s clothes strewn across the persian rug because - _gods -_ he’s still standing here butt-naked, so there’s nothing in the way as Anakin runs a hand over his shoulder to grab the side of his neck - _hard_ \- and pull him into a biting kiss.

Obi-Wan makes a hungry noise, in spite of himself, and leans into it. It’s not his fault, really - it’s just that this mysterious, gorgeous man is an earthly vessel for some sort of sex god and it’s distracting to have all of his attention - because Anakin kisses in a way that Obi-Wan can only think to describe as _dedicated_ , as if there is not a single thought in his head but Obi-Wan’s mouth.

He pulls back after a minute, humming like a satisfied tiger, his hooded eyes locked on Obi-Wan’s from barely an inch away. He licks his lower lip, and Obi-Wan’s cock twitches.

“Anakin - “ he starts.

“Don’t worry,” Anakin cuts in, with a grin. “We’re not _romantically involved_.”

With that, he turns away, retrieves his sneakers from the top of the stairs - not bothering look for his socks in all the mess - and leaves without so much as a backwards glance.

* * *

There are many things Obi-Wan does not, as a rule, allow himself to do. He does not date students, not even if they’re grad students that aren’t his. He does not have one night stands. He does not accept when Dr. Maul in the Film Studies department challenges him to duels - he’s learned his lesson on that front. He does not run if he’s late to class, like some of his colleagues do, because he thinks it looks undignified. And he does not drink, except for when Satine publishes a new paper, in which case he pours himself one glass of scotch - scotch kept for just such an occasion - and pulls the cord out of the wall phone so that he doesn’t have the means, later, when he’s had half the bottle and printed the paper out so that he can get a chokehold on its brilliance, to call his ex and say desperate, sad things to her from 3,000 miles away.

He does not do any of these things - except for that on the first Friday of fall term, from a certain uncharitable perspective, he manages to do all of these things in one night.

Satine has just had a paper out in the Journal of Peace Research - _How Liberty Dies: Right-Wing Politics and the War Against Truth in ‘The World’s Largest Democracy.’_ Obi-Wan has had his customary half-bottle of scotch, but it seems he’s forgotten to disconnect the wall phone, because while the printer’s working on Satine’s paper the phone rings in the kitchen.

It’s Dr. Maul. Dr. Maul is out somewhere, by the sounds of things, probably surrounded by an adoring crowd of undergrads, and he is saying, now, over the phone to Obi-Wan: _“Swords, old man!”_

Drunk, Obi-Wan snorts. “ _Swords?”_ he echoes. “Do you want one of us to lose a - lose a - “

_“I’m at the Cantina! If you don’t show up in half an hour I’ll assume you’re a fucking coward!”_

He hangs up. Obi-Wan stares at the phone for a long minute, listening to the tiny dial tone while an inadvisable and alcohol-fueled rage rises up inside him. No, half of his brain says. You are a grown man. You do not get in drunken swordfights with your colleagues just because they’re taunting you. _But,_ says the other half _, he called you a coward. And Satine is so very smart and beautiful. And if you win a fight and call her and tell her, she will of course come running back into your arms._

Twenty-nine minutes later, Obi-Wan’s station wagon fishtails into the Cantina parking lot and skids to a halt in front of the side door. Maul is there, glowing red in the light from the exit sign, smoking a cigarette, which he drops and grinds out with his shiny black shoe when he sees Obi-Wan get out of the car. Obi-Wan’s a little more sober now, after the drive (and that’s another thing he doesn’t do that he’s doing tonight, apparently - getting behind the wheel of a car three sheets to the wind), and he knows logically that he should turn around and drive home, but Maul’s stalking up to the driver’s side window, grinning smugly like he’s already won, and really, Obi-Wan thinks, there is only so much a man can be expected to tolerate.

He gets out of the car and slams the door behind him. “You know,” he says, conversationally, “if anyone in the English department gets wind that we had a _swordfight_ , they’re going to accuse us of wanting to fuck.”

“I don’t want to fuck,” Maul says, moving his black trench coat aside to reveal that he is wearing an honest to gods _katana_ on his belt. “I never want to fuck. I only want to fight.”

“Ah,” says Obi-Wan. “Alright, then.”

He walks around his car, pops open the hatchback, and pulls out his rapier.

Not so much later - probably only five or six minutes later - one of the young women who was kind enough to film the fight on her cell phone deposits Obi-Wan at the bar and says, “You need some ice, Professor Kenobi.” This statement does not, apparently, mean that she intends to help him get some, because she promptly disappears, leaving Obi-Wan to flag down the bartender.

The bartender, who is Anakin, hisses in sympathy, leans over the bar to press his knuckle to a cut on Obi-Wan’s lip, then sucks the blood off his finger.

Obi-Wan gapes. He’s so turned on he’s not capable of saying anything other than, “That’s so unsanitary,” and also, “Gods, come _here_ , would you,” at which point he hauls Anakin over the bar by the front of his criminally roguish-looking A-frame and kisses him.

Anakin doesn’t do any of the things that a normal, sane person should do - he doesn’t break away and say, _no way, José_ , doesn’t have the bouncer toss Obi-Wan out of the bar, doesn’t slam his head into the bartop. What he does do is make a low, rumbling _yes_ sound against Obi-Wan’s mouth and hike one knee up on the bar back to get closer to him.

“My house,” Obi-Wan says, muffled against Anakin’s mouth, when his brain catches up with the fact that there are students and cell phones and he’s in enough trouble as it is.

“Your house,” Anakin agrees. “I’ll drive.”

He drives a Ducati, as it turns out, which does nothing but make Obi-Wan’s hard-on that much harder. If he has any rules about outdoor sexual activity - which he’s never considered, but he thinks he does, usually, just not explicit ones - he breaks those, too, because the moment Anakin speeds into the driveway and pops the kick stand Obi-Wan can’t help palming him through his jeans, and then unzipping his jeans and getting a hand around his hot, hard cock, at which point he certainly can’t be expected to refrain from pressing his teeth into the side of Anakin’s neck and growling into his ear, _“I want this inside me_.”

“Jesus Christ,” Anakin says, hips jerking in Obi-Wan’s grip, “who the fuck are you?”

And that’s a fair question, really, because this isn’t Obi-Wan. He doesn’t act like this. It’s not just the alcohol, either, or the adrenaline, though both would be tempting excuses. He feels wild. He feels _ravenous,_ and insane, like if he doesn’t get this man naked in the next five minutes he’s going to hurt someone, and it doesn’t make any sense at all.

Except, maybe, to Anakin. Because -

“Inside,” Anakin manages to get out, between lungfuls of cold night air and great, tidal rolls of his hips. “Inside, inside - “ tugging Obi-Wan’s hand out of his jeans, hopping off the bike and running onto the front porch with his cock straining his unzipped fly, “You better have a bed in there, or so help me - “

“I sleep upside-down, like a bat,” Obi-Wan deadpans, but he lets Anakin manhandle him through his own front door, up his own narrow staircase, and into his own cluttered bedroom.

He supposes, technically, he doesn’t break _all_ of his rules that night - he doesn’t run across the quad until the next morning, fresh from a disciplinary meeting with the provost and half an hour late for his graduate seminar on Confucius’ _Analects_. And he doesn’t date a student - not for a while, at least. Though, when he eventually gets around to it, he supposes it does sort of negate his having had a one night stand - so in breaking that one particular rule, he actually un-breaks another.

* * *

Obi-Wan’s week, after his dalliance with the bartender, progresses in a singularly disagreeable fashion.

He and Dr. Maul are pulled into not one but _three_ disciplinary meetings with the provost, the result of which is that they are pressed to service as faculty chaperones of the fall student activities fair, at which fraternities and school papers and the like attempt to recruit freshmen with free t-shirts, ‘not-weed’ brownies and homemade banners. Ordinarily, Obi-Wan would appreciate the punishment for the lenient sentence that it is, but his three grad students have decided that it’s their responsibility to give him a ‘reality check,’ his entire PHIL-203 lecture have mutinied and demanded that he let them turn in a paper a week late, and he’s in no mood to spend his Thursday afternoon mulling about in the hot sun and trying to avoid meeting Dr. Maul’s glare across the quad.

Obi-Wan brought out a stack of pop quizzes with him to grade - inflicted earlier this morning upon PHIL-203 in retliation for their insubordination - but the provost is out here somewhere, probably intending to head off any more viral video opportunities, and Obi-Wan’s not looking to pull rush duty because he got caught hiding behind a tree stamping _F_ s on quizzes. He’s making his meandering way through the crowd, directionless aside from a half-formed thought to drop by the LGBT student union booth and say hello to Quinlan, when someone calls, “Professor Kenobi!”

It’s Ahsoka Tano, one of the rare undergrads whose name he actually bothered learning - she’s an engineering major, he thinks, mech-E, but she’d taken his class on Theravāda Buddhism over the summer term and did quite well - very lively in class discussion, very respectful of foreign cultures.

She’s waving him over to the booth for the robotics club, smiling hugely, and Obi-Wan, not wanting to offend, really has no choice but to go over.

“Ms. Tano,” he says, when he’s in range. “It’s been a while. How are you?”

“Good!” she says. “I’m good, professor, how are you?”

“I’m quite well, thank you - “

“We’re just about to do a demonstration, I thought maybe you’d like to see it.”

Obi-Wan flounders. “A demonstration?”

“Yeah, Skyguy - sorry, our grad supervisor - he’s supposed to be here with one of our prototypes any second. I know it’s not exactly your usual thing, but it’s awesome, I promise.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan says, brain still catching up. “I’d be quite happy to see it, Ms. Tano.”

“Great! Oh, there he is now!”

She points, and Obi-Wan turns to look, and _of_ _course,_ because it’s just been that sort of week, the man weaving through the crowd at a brisk jog with an armful of robot is none other than Anakin.

Obi-Wan wants to run, really he does, but he’s already run in public once this week and that puts him well over his quota. He can spot the exact second Anakin sees him - the comedic eyebrows-shooting-up, tripping-over-his-own-feet as he pushes through a gaggle of Gamma Alpha Rho girls and stops dead in his tracks, staring at Obi-Wan with his mouth open.

“Uh,” says Ahsoka, after a long minute. “Do you two know each other?”

Obi-Wan valiantly suppresses visions of tan skin and orgasmic ecstasy, and is about to deny everything when Anakin says, “Nope. Nuh-uh. We definitely don’t.”

“Oh my god,” Ahsoka says, eyes going very, very round. “ _This_ is the guy?”

“The _guy?”_ Obi-Wan echoes, at the same time that Anakin says, “For fuck’s sake, Snips. I never should’ve told you anything.”

Ahsoka looks like her brain is spinning around and around in her head like an astronaut in an aerotrim. She opens her mouth to speak, but luckily before she can say anything, one of the other girls in the robotics club announces, “OKAY, EVERYONE, IT’S THREEPIO TIME!”

Anakin’s swarmed by undergrads, and Obi-Wan loses sight of him.

Both of them would probably escape unscathed, except that when Obi-Wan’s getting into his car in the faculty parking lot, Anakin comes jogging over with a box full of machine parts, calling, “Hey, professor! My bike won’t start - can you give me a lift?”

“Okay,” he says, when the box is in the back with Obi-Wan’s traveling library and he’s sitting in the passenger seat, “I was lying. My bike’s fine.”

Obi-Wan stares at him.

“Right,” says Anakin, with a self-conscious little smile. “What I should’ve said was, ‘Hey, professor! Let me take you to dinner!’ but in my defense - it’s been a long time since I’ve done this.”

“I told you - “ Obi-Wan starts.

“I know, I know, you don’t date students. But listen, here’s the thing - I’ve been thinking about your mouth like constantly since Friday night, and also your beard, and also how you sounded when I had you up against the bookshelf with my fingers up your - _mmph_ \- “

He cuts off, because Obi-Wan leans across the gearshift and crashes their lips together.

“Ow,” Anakin comments, when they break apart for air.

“Shut up,” Obi-Wan orders, and hauls him back in.

They next time they break, both of them panting hard, Anakin offers weakly, “Dinner?”

Obi-Wan huffs and says, “You really don’t have to buy my dinner.”

“Okay then,” Anakin breathes. “Your house?”

“My house,” Obi-Wan agrees.

Later, after some very gratifying nude acrobatics in Obi-Wan’s rickety old bed, he bustles about the kitchen in his robe with Anakin attached to his back like a leech, the scent of coffee steaming from the fresh pot and the mid-afternoon sun shining through the window.

“I don’t know anyone else who still has a coffee pot,” Anakin murmurs, mouth tucked close against Obi-Wan’s ear. “When’s it from, the Stone Age?”

“Bronze Age, actually,” Obi-Wan answers serenely. “Much like that charming robotic friend of yours. What’s his name again?”

“C-3PO,” Anakin says, “but we call him Threepio. And his plating’s brass, not bronze.”

“My mistake. He is quite impressive, though.”

Anakin hides his face in Obi-Wan’s shoulder, even though Obi-Wan’s back is to him and he can’t see him blush anyways - though he knows perfectly well that Anakin’s blushing. He barely hears Anakin’s muffled, “Thanks,” through the terrycloth.

He pulls his face up with a wet-sounding exhale and hooks his chin over Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “It was the kids, though. I mean, the rest of the club. It was a group effort.”

“An impressive group effort, then,” Obi-Wan allows.

Back in bed, nursing fresh cups of coffee, Obi-Wan winds his legs through Anakin’s and tries very much not to think about whether, having let Anakin fuck him again - and in the middle of the afternoon, to boot - he’s engaged in a second one night stand, or simply tacked an extension on the first one. It doesn’t matter, he decides, when Anakin sets his mug on the nightstand and stretches over to kiss a mark he left on Obi-Wan’s throat.

It doesn’t matter, so long as Anakin keeps kissing him.

They both have awful coffee breath, and they’ve spent more time fucking than they have talking, but Obi-Wan feels as if Anakin has somehow, miraculously, come running out of his future to meet him - as if he’s someone enormously important who just hasn’t been around quite long enough to be enormously important yet.

Their mouths part. Anakin holds Obi-Wan’s head between his hands, stroking his thumbs over his cheeks, the tip of his nose nuzzling the side of Obi-Wan’s.

Obi-Wan wants to clutch him back, but his hands are still cupped around his mug. Instead he makes do resting his forehead against Anakin’s. “You’re much braver than me,” he murmurs.

“What?” Anakin laughs. “Why?”

“Nothing. Never mind, my dear.”

“Oh, come on.” Anakin presses an imploring kiss to the line of Obi-Wan’s beard. “Tell me why I’m so brave.”

Obi-Wan has no intention of complying, but Anakin - nosing behind Obi-Wan’s ear, now, to lave a wet, open-mouthed kiss just above the hinge of his jaw - is proving to be quite the negotiator. “Tell me,” he orders again, this time a low, rumbling sound against Obi-Wan’s neck.

Obi-Wan tilts his head to give Anakin better access. “I’m bad at approaching people who…people I’m attracted to, shall I say.”

“Should I remind you who kissed who first?”

“And I’m _very_ bad at running after people who leave.”

Anakin scoffs, pulling back to look him in the eyes. “You kicked me out!”

“I did _not_ \- “

“I _never_ get _romantically involved_ with _students_ ,” Anakin mocks, in a poor imitation of Obi-Wan’s accent. “How was I supposed to take that - as an invitation to stick around for breakfast?”

“No,” Obi-Wan admits, ducking his eyes. “No, you’re right.”

“Hey,” Anakin says. “I don’t want to leave, alright? If I wanted out of whatever this is, I wouldn’t have gotten in your car and press-ganged you into making out with me.”

“I kissed you,” Obi-Wan reminds him.

“Let’s stop keeping score,” Anakin says. “Okay? Okay,” and kisses him again.

Obi-Wan spills coffee all over his sheets.

* * *

A month later, they’ve slept together seven more times - six by prearrangement and once by happy accident during Obi-Wan’s office hours - and they find themselves without ceremony one Sunday morning perusing the mattress section of the nearest Sears.

Obi-Wan bought his mattress second hand back when he bought the house, nearly ten years ago. It’s lumpy, and creaky, and he wakes up with a seized back one or two mornings a term, but buying a new one seems, to him, like a bit of a drastic measure. Nevertheless he is here, wearing his glasses - since one more thing he never does is put in contacts on Sundays - nursing a travel mug and favoring Anakin with an indulgent but unamused look as he extols the manifold virtues of $2,000 remote-controlled adjustable memory foam beds. He is here because Anakin has been whining about how the mattress has dips on both sides - Obi-Wan already flipped it ages ago - and because, in spite of what he logically knows is the casual nature of their relationship, Obi-Wan wants Anakin to feel at home in his house.

“Try it out, at least,” Anakin prods. He’s lying out on the remote-controlled bed with his legs crossed and his hands behind his head, like he’s on a pool float.

Heat rises to Obi-Wan’s face as he fights down a sudden sense-memory of Anakin laying the same way on his couch - naked, hard. He clears his throat and sets his travel mug on the bedside table - also on sale, for a cool $750. “Alright. Budge up, then.”

Anakin wiggles over to make room for him with a shit-eating grin. Obi-Wan settles in, flat on his back, hands clasped over his stomach.

“So?” Anakin asks. “How’s it feel?”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes and makes a show of getting comfortable. “It feels expensive.”

Anakin huffs, a soft exhalation of air next to him. “You’re right. What was I thinking? Something that costs this much could never vibe with the Temple.”

 _The Temple,_ Anakin has taken to calling his house. Obi-Wan doesn’t mind, but it does make him wonder if he’s taken some misstep in building a home - he’s never had one before, and he’s only spent genuine quality time in a few - Bail and Breha’s; Ki Adi Mundi’s, back when he was still young enough to be excused from after-dinner meditation to run roughshod in the back yard with the old swordmaster’s brood of happy children; and Satine’s, that one blissful year when she had invited him home for the holidays. He has wondered, more than once, Anakin’s teasing accusations of preciousness ringing in his ears, whether he is overly-exacting in his choices of furniture, of décor, or whether he is not exacting enough, whether people are meant to care more about the color of their shower curtain or less about the arrangement of their bookshelves, whether people are not meant to think of any of this at all; whether it comes naturally to those who are born into it.

Obi-Wan’s home, for the first five years of his life, was an underfunded orphanage in the parish of Stewjon, England, and after that it was what might uncharitably be called a hippie commune, in rural California.

He has faced the prospect of buying a mattress, before, but he has never faced the prospect of doing it with another person, with someone who will be there to help him carry it inside, wrestle it up the stairs - someone who will sleep on it with him.

It all makes him feel quite small; quite naïve.

In the end - after an hour of browsing and an impressive but ultimately unsuccessful attempt by Anakin to get Obi-Wan to agree to a quickie in the clothing department’s fitting rooms - they decide on a perfectly normal mattress, for which Obi-Wan pays a perfectly reasonable price.

Lying in bed that night - the first time that Anakin has slept over two nights in a row - Obi-Wan stares up at the dark, slanted ceiling, unable to sleep. It’s not that the new mattress isn’t comfortable - it’s quite a lot more comfortable than the old one, actually, and they’ve done quite a thorough job of breaking it in. It’s worry - a strange, ill-fitting worry, one that he’s never felt before - worry that he is moving too fast, that he has become too attached too quickly, that he is already subconsciously starting to think of this as ‘their’ bed.

He has always had a tendency to grab onto things too vehemently and too quickly, despite how Qui-Gon tried to raise him, and he has found over the years that most people do not much care to be grabbed onto. Qui-Gon, for one. Satine, for another.

Obi-Wan listens to Anakin’s deep, slightly-congested breathing in the dark (well, _sort of_ in the dark, since he’s found Anakin prefers sleeping with the bathroom light on) and hopes that he can resist the urge to grab - or, if he can’t, that Anakin doesn’t mind too terribly much.

He starts to roll on his side, starts to reach for Anakin across the warm under-cover space of their bed, but in motion he thinks better of it, stops, and falls asleep with his arm outstretched - bent, not quite touching.

The next morning - Monday morning - he wakes to a sweaty back and Anakin plastered against him from head to toe, so that there’s not an inch between them.

Relief seeps through him like the first touch of sunlight after a long winter. Ostensibly, their relationship to this point has been mostly about sex, and Obi-Wan knows that this - waking up wrapped in Anakin’s arms - does not negate that, but neither of them are hard, and he can feel that Anakin is awake behind him, but neither of them says anything - neither of them moves - except, briefly, Anakin pressing a kiss to the back of Obi-Wan’s neck and Obi-Wan tightening his grip on Anakin’s wrist, reflexive - until Anakin’s alarm goes off at 6:30.

“ _Shit,”_ he says, on his way out of bed, “shit, shit, shit - “

Obi-Wan props himself up on his elbows as Anakin disappears into the bathroom. “I thought you didn’t TA any lectures before ten? I remember you telling me that quite proudly, actually - “

“I have to take the kids to school,” Anakin says absently, then breezes back into the bedroom, gives Obi-Wan a quick, minty kiss, and disappears down the stairs.

A moment later he’s back, eyes wide. “Uh,” he says, “I have two kids.”

“You have two kids,” Obi-Wan echoes, slowly.

“Yeah,” says Anakin. If he had a hat, Obi-Wan’s pretty sure it would be in his hands. “I, um - Listen. I’m not married. I’m not involved with anyone else. Their mother is - well, we’re friends, but it was one night way back in undergrad, and we can talk all about it later, but right now I’m running late and I really really love my kids, so I’ve got to run across town - “

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, just to get him to stop talking. “Go. It’s alright. I’ll see you later.”

“Right,” says Anakin, “okay, good,” but he takes the time to kneel on the bed and kiss Obi-Wan once more, his hand in Obi-Wan’s hair, searching, grateful, before he leaves again.

“Kids,” Obi-Wan mutters to himself, after he hears the front door slam closed. “Dear lord.”

He sighs, and hauls himself out of bed.

It’s not that he dislikes children. In theory, he likes them as much as the next person, but he hasn’t had much occasion to interact with them since he was one himself - excepting, of course, the odd visit back to the Jedi Spiritual Living Center.

Anakin, on the other hand, has the makings of an extraordinary father - now that he sees it, Obi-Wan’s not sure how he didn’t notice it before. Anakin speaks fondly of his mother, he is what seems like an excellent big brother to Ahsoka, he is happy and genuine and engaging, and though he is prone to brief bursts of anger, he tends to strike out at drywall and unsuspecting doorjambs, instead of people. He doesn’t get into swordfights when he’s drunk, as far as Obi-Wan’s aware, either.

Obi-Wan goes through his morning routine - sun salutations on the widow’s walk, thirty minute morning meditation, five minute cold shower, cup of coffee and a cup of yogurt with his daily perusal of the _Times of India_ , and off to the university by eight.

This morning, as he could have predicted, yoga is not enough to get the tension out of his neck; meditation is not enough to calm his mind; yogurt sits nauseous in his stomach and he can hardly focus on the _Times_.

What he doesn’t predict is this - that he would arrive at his office in the rabbit’s warren of the philosophy building to find Anakin sitting on his desk, talking to Quinlan Vos.

“…really eye-opening,” Quinlan’s saying, as Obi-Wan rounds the corner. “Professor Kenobi’s insights into how Confucius’ ideals of filial piety helped build modern Chinese culture are actually what inspired my thesis - there was a trip to Shandong province, a few summers ago - “

“Quin,” Obi-Wan says, stepping through the door. “Anakin. I wasn’t expecting you.”

There’s some sort of tension between Anakin and Quinlan, tight and dangerous, but it fades as Anakin breaks their stare, straightening. “Yeah. I thought maybe we could talk before your first class.”

“I was hoping you’d had a chance to look at those revisions I sent over the weekend,” Quinlan says. “The ones in the section on the One Child policy - “

“Not yet, I’m afraid. I had a - “ Obi-Wan casts a quick glance at Anakin “ - a bit of a busy weekend. I’ll try to look at them over lunch.”

“Thanks,” Quinlan says. With a last, lingering look at Anakin, he departs.

Anakin glares after him.

Obi-Wan decides to let whatever _that_ is sort itself out without his help, and starts situating his desk. “So.” He clears his throat. “Two kids?”

Anakin looks back at him, softening. “Yeah. Twins.” He takes out his phone, pulls up a photo, and offers it to Obi-Wan - two kids, about five, a blond boy and a girl with her long brown hair in braided pigtails.

Obi-Wan is hit with a wave of immediate, thoughtless affection, and has to clear his throat again, this time to get down the unseemly emotion. “What are their names?” he asks.

“Luke, and Leia. Their mother named them, or else I probably would’ve called them Neil and Sally.”

Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows. “Neil and Sally?”

“Armstrong and Ride.”

“Ah. Well, not to offend, but I think it’s a good thing their mother had creative control.” He glances up, forcing himself to meet Anakin’s eyes. “Is she - “

“Her name is Padmé. She works for a state senator, Bail Organa.”

Obi-Wan blinks. “Bail?”

“You know him?”

“He’s a good friend of mine.”

“Well,” Anakin smiles a little, weakly. “Small world, huh?”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, until another one of Obi-Wan’s grad students unlocks the door of the office next door - the noise is enough to remind Obi-Wan that he’s still holding Anakin’s phone, which he hands back perhaps a little too fast, judging by the crestfallen look on Anakin’s face as he takes it. “Look, Obi-Wan,” he starts, “I know I probably should’ve told you sooner - “

“Can I meet them?” Obi-Wan asks, before he can remember that grabbing on too hard too fast is a sure way to have people slip through your fingers.

He backpedals as fast as he can, blushing - “I mean later - if you decide you want to, once you discuss it with their mother, obviously. Or, if this - I understand if you aren’t that serious about this - “

“Professor?” says Depa Billaba, outside the door.

“Depa,” Obi-Wan says, half mortified and half grateful. “Yes? What is it?”

“You have a meeting with the dean before your nine o’clock lecture - I’m sure you remember.”

“Of course,” Obi-Wan says. “Thank you, Depa.”

She smiles and departs. Obi-Wan is gathering up his bag - re-packing what he’s just unpacked - and preparing to escape out the door into the hall, prolonguing the inevitable, when Anakin catches his arm.

Obi-Wan looks at him. They are standing very close in the doorway, Anakin’s eyes mere inches from his, ringed with an almost manic edge of red. “Obi-Wan,” he says softly, and presses him back into the door jamb.

Obi-Wan makes a breathy noise into his mouth, caught between a gasp and a moan, and somewhere - in what distant part of his brain is still functioning properly - he hopes that Depa has gone into her office and closed the door. He drops his bag with a thump and sinks his hands in Anakin’s hair, coming up against the tie that’s keeping it all back in a roguish little ponytail - at which point he gives in to the urge to _tug_ , with his hands and with his heart.

Anakin tugs back, hauling Obi-Wan in flush against him.

“I’m serious about this,” Anakin murmurs, when they break apart, sharing air. “I don’t think I’d even know _how_ to not be serious about you.”

“Right,” Obi-Wan says, brain still mostly offline. “Good. Well, we’re both done at six, yes? Meet me at mine, and you can be serious about me all over the kitchen table.”

“That’s unsanitary,” Anakin says, delighted. “Gods, come _here,_ will you.”

 _He remembers,_ Obi-Wan thinks, delirious as a man who’s narrowly escaped death, and when he shows up, half an hour late, to his meeting with the dean, his tweed jacket is misbuttoned, he looks like a man thoroughly and recently debauched - and he doesn’t care in the slightest.

44

As winter creeps in on cat feet, Anakin migrates to the Temple one sock - one TI-84 calculator - one battered model airplane held over from childhood at a time.

Obi-Wan observes, but he doesn’t comment; like a naturalist observing an animal in its natural habitat, he feels that to call attention the phenomenon would be to bring it to an end. So he watches Anakin leave books on the coffee table that a week later become books wedged into the empty spaces on his shelves, watches him bring boxes of machine parts into the garage to get them ‘out of the weather’ on perfectly sunny days, watches him fix the dripping tap in the downstairs bathroom and set ant traps along the drafty fireplace and spirit one of the kitchen chairs away to the university woodshop to even out the wobbly leg.

There is something steadying in it all, like Anakin is helping him build a foundation that he never had, like he’s shoring up the ground underneath him. Anakin sleeps in his bed more often than not. Their fucking becomes familiar - not in a bad way - as if they’ve been doing it for years.

With an oddly comforting sort of regularity, they devolve once or twice a week into petty squabbles - sniping over Anakin’s perpetually-lost motorcycle keys, over Anakin and Ahsoka blasting heavy metal in the garage at two in the morning while they work on Threepio. Anakin enters an illegal street race being put on by one of the undergrad engineering frats - that particular fight ends with very vigorous, greasy, and naked fucking on what Obi-Wan later learns is Mace Windu’s car - and Obi-Wan lets slip after a faculty dinner party - which he had to threaten Anakin with abstinence to get him to attend - that he doesn’t smoke weed becase he was raised on a steady diet of magic mushrooms and ‘communing with the universe,’ which leads to Anakin following him all around the house in a suit he borrowed from Bail Organa, interrogating him about his childhood - which leads to Obi-Wan exploding, halfway up the ladder to the widow’s walk, “I was adopted by warrior monks!”

Anakin stares. “What, like Sikhs?”

“No, not _Sikhs,_ ” Obi-Wan says, aghast. “Sikh’s aren’t _warrior monks_.”

“They carry swords,” says Anakin, reasonably.

“Dear gods,” Obi-Wan says.

“Hey,” Anakin catches his ankle, preventing him from trying to flee again, and climbs up the ladder so he cages Obi-Wan in with his arms and legs. “You can tell me stuff, you know. I’m not gonna dump you because you’re weird. I already knew you were weird.”

Obi-Wan glares at him.

“Sorry,” Anakin says. “Not ‘weird.’ Eccentric and hot and you have a sword mounted over your mantelpiece with another professor’s blood on it. How’s that?”

Obi-Wan hangs his head, but Anakin catches his chin and tilts it up so he has to meet his eyes, thumb scraping over his beard as he leans in - slowly, so Obi-Wan has plenty of warning to push him off the ladder and break his ankle, if he wants - and kisses him.

It’s not a kiss that’s meant to go anywhere, so it doesn’t, just hangs there between them, reassuring, as Obi-Wan begins, “They call themselves Jedi. They’re sort of…swordfighting Buddhists.”

“ _Swordfighting Buddhists,_ ” Anakin echoes, but doesn’t laugh.

Obi-Wan tells him some of it, then, but not all of it, because some of it still hurts too much for him to even look at directly - the year he spent at the AgriCorps farm, for instance. But he tells Anakin as much as he can, about Qui-Gon finding him at the orphanage in England and signing adoption papers for reasons that Obi-Wan to this day does not understand, but will always be grateful for, about daily life at the center, the routine of morning meditation that he continues to this day, learning tai-chi after breakfast and math and history and principles of universal peace after lunch, how the founders of the center had been avid swordsmen and how the practice had trickled down through the years, passed from one generation to the next, so that Obi-Wan, on top of getting academic scholarships from a half-dozen schools, had been invited to attend Stanford as a member of the fencing team.

“You’ll have to teach me sometime,” Anakin says, lips brushing Obi-Wan’s brow. They’re tangled in bed, Obi-Wan’s ear resting on Anakin’s chest, lulled by the drumbeat of his heart.

“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan allows. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you with an edged weapon.”

“Give me the stabby one, then. The one that looks like a toothpick.”

“I’m afraid you can do just as much damage with an epée as with a sabre.”

Anakin scoffs softly, but he doesn’t protest.

The next morning, crowded in Obi-Wan’s shower, standing with their wet feet interlinked on the anti-slip mat fixed to the sloped bottom of the tub, Anakin cups his hands over Obi-Wan’s eyes to keep shampoo from rinsing down into them and smiles questioningly when Obi-Wan stares at him like he’s grown a second head. _What,_ Anakin could ask, _your mother never washed your hair?_ And Obi-Wan sees him start to think of it, sees it travel from his brain to his tongue, but before it can get past his lips Anakin thinks it through, and the smile fades from his face, and he slides a hand down Obi-Wan’s back and kisses his wet hair, instead.

Obi-Wan feels _cared for_ , with Anakin, in a way he never has before. He’s never thought that adult relationships would have that element - he had expected that he’d officially missed out on the opportunity to be looked after when his parents left him on the front stoop of a nunnery and his future was decided for him, but now he understands - is beginning to understand - that to care for someone - to love them, perhaps - is to look after them. He learns in himself that it’s not a conscious choice, but a sort of compulsion - to know at all times that Anakin is alright, to know what bothers him, to help him carry the weight.

In December, Anakin calls Obi-Wan from his mother’s house in Arizona, his kids yelling in the background, and before he hangs up, he says, _Love you._ They don’t talk about it.

In January, Obi-Wan puts a house key on Anakin’s keyring when he finds it in the refrigerator’s crisper drawer, and lets Anakin discover the keyring - and the new addition - himself. They don’t talk about it.

In February, Anakin tries to shoot a rocket from the widow’s walk and burns a hole through the roof - they talk about that one a lot. Yell about it, even.

In March, Obi-Wan drags Anakin to another faculty party, where Anakin gets all sorts of wrong ideas about Quinlan Vos and decides to fellate Obi-Wan in a coat closet about it.

( _You, Anakin,_ Obi-Wan swears, breathless and trying to be quiet, Anakin’s fingers digging hard into the backs of his thighs. _Only you, only ever you -_ and comes explosively down Anakin’s throat while his colleagues enjoy hors d’oeuvres not ten feet away.)

They don’t talk about it.

In April, Anakin comes home with a pair of skintight yoga pants, laughing, and nearly swallows his tongue when Obi-Wan comes down off the widow’s walk wearing them the next morning. They don’t talk about that, either.

In June, as the frenzied atmosphere of final exams swallows the campus whole and the weather takes an abrupt turn from pleasant to sweltering, Obi-Wan meets Padmé.

“I’m not vetting you,” she promises, even as she’s pulling him down into a ‘hello’ hug. “I trust Anakin’s choices, I do, it’s just hard to get to know someone while the twins are in attendance. Trust me.”

“I shall defer to your expertise,” Obi-Wan says.

They’re meeting without Anakin, as per unanimous decision. Obi-Wan had been worried, briefly, that Padmé might choose one of the restaurants downtown as the venue, and was very gratified this morning when she had texted to ask that he meet her at Dex’s - they know his order here (spicy noodles, extra spice), and apparently they know Padmé’s as well (spicy noodles, extra spice). When the orders come, and they realize that they’re the same, they burst into laughter, and it’s like some ice is broken. Obi-Wan can’t help but take it as an auspicious sign, although -

“Does Anakin have, like, a _really_ specific type?” Padmé wonders aloud.

Obi-Wan smiles. “I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to stake this place out looking for people who order extra spicy noodles. But beyond that, I’m not sure we’re much alike.” He pauses. “I don’t mean that as - “

“No, I get it,” Padmé assures him. “You’re, what, a foot taller than me? A decade older? No offense. Plus, you’re a man.”

“Thank you for noticing,” Obi-Wan says.

Padmé smiles.

They talk for hours, monopolizing Obi-Wan’s usual booth in the back corner. Padmé regales him with stories of being a poli-sci major and an unpaid campaign staffer, with finding out she was pregnant the morning she had to walk for graduation, with the soap opera workplace drama of the state senate. They swap stories about Bail, about Anakin, and by the time they run out of things to say Dex is closing up and Padmé’s phone tells them it’s 11 p.m. “Oh gosh,” she says, “I better get going. I told Breha I’d be back by ten.”

Out in the balmy dark of the parking lot, she pulls down him into another hug - this one a ‘goodbye’ hug - and tells him, “I like you, Obi-Wan. I think my kids are going to like you, too.”

“I hope so,” Obi-Wan says quietly, and smiles as they get in their separate cars.

Anakin is waiting on the front porch when he gets home, and as Obi-Wan puts the station wagon in park he’s struck by how _odd_ that is, that Anakin should be here waiting for an old professor instead of somewhere else waiting for the mother of his children. He can’t shake the feeling - that he’s somehow butted in where he’s not supposed to be - as he turns the car off and walks up to the porch.

Anakin’s watching with barely-contained energy, hands in his pockets. “So?” he asks, when Obi-Wan’s in range. “How’d it go?”

“She’s lovely,” Obi-Wan says. “She’s - You’re sure you don’t - “

“No, you idiot,” says Anakin, not unfondly.

Obi-Wan drags a hand over his face, letting his weight fall back against a post. “I’m not all sure I’m cut out for family life, Anakin.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think I’ll be any good at it.”

“It’s not about being good at it.” Anakin steps into him. He’s barefoot, hair still damp from the shower, curling around his ears. _He lives here,_ Obi-Wan thinks, as Anakin takes hold of the front of his shirt. _He lives here._

“What’s it about, then?” he asks, feeling a thousand years old - exhausted.

Anakin smiles softly. The neighbor’s porchlight traces faint orange light over his face - his dear, dear face, and suddenly Obi-Wan has to touch him, so he does, taking his face between his hands. Anakin’s grip tightens in response. “It’s about love,” he confides, softly, only for Obi-Wan. “I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true. It’s just about love.”

 _I love you,_ Obi-Wan mouths, because he doesn’t have the voice - can’t seem to speak.

“I know,” Anakin says. “I know,” and takes him into their house.

* * *

“Daddy said you fight with swords,” is the first thing out of Luke’s mouth, when Obi-Wan steps into Padmé’s apartment.

Obi-Wan blinks down at him, then crouches so they’re eye-to-eye. “Yes,” he says. “Though I don’t do it much anymore - we live in a civilized society, you know.”

Luke is trying to puzzle out ‘civilized society’ when his sister arrives officiously from the kitchen, holds out her hand, and says, “I’m Leia. I’m going to be the president.”

“Madam President,” Obi-Wan obliges, and shakes her hand gently.

Luke recovers with a little jump and says, “Daddy said one time you beat up a big bully with a sword and that’s how you met and I said that makes him the princess.”

Obi-Wan struggles to keep a straight face. “Yes,” he says, “I think you’re quite right, Luke.”

Later, when Obi-Wan helps Padmé carry dinner out into the small, charming back yard, they find Anakin sitting in the grass with one of Leia’s tiaras in his hair, Luke and Leia running around him playing ‘Obi-Wan versus the big bully’ with foam swords and tiny exclamations of ‘ARR!’ and ‘AVAST!’

“When did Dr. Maul and I become pirates?” Obi-Wan asks Anakin, setting down the potato salad.

“You’re a traitor, is what you are,” Anakin grumbles.

“You wound me, Your Highness,” Obi-Wan says, amused.

Anakin meets him with what he clearly intends as a glare, but his mouth isn’t cooperating - a smile tugging at the corners of his lips until he can’t keep it back anymore. And honestly, what can Obi-Wan be expected to do except smile back?

Luke and Leia crash into their father from both sides at once, flailing foam swords, breaking the moment as Padmé calls for them to go inside and wash their hands before dinner - _I know you’ve been digging for worms, Luke Skywalker, don’t try to deny it! -_ and as Anakin follows them inside, he pauses to catch Obi-Wan around the waist and press a kiss the side of his head.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “Thank you. I’m so happy you’re here.”

It’s the simplicity of the statement, probably, that takes Obi-Wan’s breath away. He presses a chaste, closed-mouth kiss to Anakin’s lips. “Happy to be here,” he says, when they part.

Then one of the kids shrieks inside, and they move away from the moment. It’s alright, though - the moment, Obi-Wan knows, will remain forever in time and in memory - one perfect, unerasable scene in the tapestry of their lives.

And there will be many more moments to come, besides.

**Author's Note:**

> andthepeople.tumblr.com


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